Clean Asia!
Clean Asia, published in Feb 1, 2007, is a fast-paced "bullet hell"-shoot'em'up mainly focussing on boss fights (see: Protoganda) but also facing some smaller enemies. The game was made for and won the autofire competition on shmup-dev.com 2007. Plot The eyes of mankind has decided to leave their hosts and take over the earth. Their first move was to escape to the moon, where they developed their hostile weapon technology. Ten years later they return and forcefully take over some prominent countries in Asia. Thailand and New Korea has both succumb to the hostile threat, while China insists on dealing with the eyes themselves and refuses any helping hands from around the world. America sends a pair of pilot twins with extroardinary sixth senses to battle against the evil eyes. They both have designed their own space ships that seems to be about the only thing in existance that can be used to battle these terrible fiends. Controls There are two ships to select in the game: One - the "Reflector" - being a rather common shoot'em'up vessel armed with gun, shield and charged shots, the other one - "Attractor" - being completely unarmed and only able to attack with speedy thrusts which can destroy single parts of the enemies and also can be used to dodge bullets. Attractor controls * Arrow keys to move * Z & arrow keys to thrust * X to attract smaller pieces of metal (after they have been blewn off the enemy) * Z while holding X to shoot single pieces of metal * release Z to fire all attracted pieces of metal at once Reflector controls * Arrow Keys to move * Z to fire your main gun * X to activate your shield. You can't move or shoot while using the shield. * C to load and release a charged shot. * V to release a massive blast (this will decrease your weapon's power) Gameplay Clean Asia! is no game to play if you never played a Shoot'em'up before. The difficulty is by many players judged as "way too high" or "impossible to beat" - though the game is actually beatable some of its aspects are rather frustrating, what might not be very suitable for beginners. Major gameplay information Clean Asia! includes three stages: Thailand, New Korea and China. In all of these your mission is to exterminate the hostile eyes by destroying their defense mechanisms - in other words, you have to beat all bosses you encounter. However, they are all armed with different weapons with certain fire patterns. The game also includes a scoring system basing on combo hits - a combo of above 5 will earn a bonus of the combo count times 10,000 points, however a combo above 32 will earn a bonus of the combo count times 50,000 points. This scoring system was first used in Clean Asia! and can be found in many other cactus games (like Seizuredome, Fractal Fighter, Protoganda and xWung). There are no extra lives in this game, you start each stage with three ships and have to take care of them - when all three are destroyed, the game ends, all saved progress (cleared stages) is lost and you're sent back to main menu. Gameplay with "Attractor" The fact that the Attractor has no actual gun makes it very difficult to land effective attacks on the first enemy in the stages - as you have no debris to blast at them yet. (The only exception is China) Timing is essential, a thrust at the wrong moment may lead straight into the enemy's body, which is as deadly as the weapons. If you manage to break one piece of the enemy apart and attract the debris, you can most likely land more effective hits with it, what makes further strikes more easy. However, you are always risking to face a raging boss enemy with nothing but your thruster. There is one more special gameplay change when using the Attractor: In Korea stage, enemies are using different-colored and -armed turrets against the player. After breaking the enemy parts they've been attached to, the turrets will drop down and can be caught and used by the Attractor. See "5. Korea Stage" for more details on the different turrets. If armed with a turret, the Attractor controls slightly change. The Z button is no longer used for thrusting but for firing from the turret instead. X is no longer used for attracting debris but to drop the armed turret. The turret will also drop after a certain number of shots. Gameplay with "Reflector" Playing the Reflector requires a bit less skill than the Attractor as you don't have to worry about ammunition and the ship attracts debris automatically. The debris is not used to send it back to where it came from but to charge the Reflector's weapon instead. As soon as 100 pieces of debris have been attracted, the ship's weapon will upgrade to a higher level. (The highest possible weapon level is 9, the lowest 0. The ship starts on level 2) Using the shield will slowly decrease the debris and may lead to downgrading the weapon. Also, no new debris will be attracted while the shield is active. Using the power blast will always decrease the weapon level by 2. Thailand Stage Music: "D0n't Taunt Me" by John Marwin Statistics Bosses (in order of appearance): # Nominal/Cross # Abominal/Heart (see Picture) # Minimal/Cross # Luminal/Ring # Radical/Cube # Divisional/Sattelite # Sceptical/Squares Special conditions: * All bosses have an own color, appearance and weapon * Most bosses (like the Luminal/Ring) are extremely massive * Most bosses' appearance bases on geometric shapes (cross, ring, cube, square) * This is the only stage with large enemy parts * Total large parts (36 debris): 46 * Total small parts (9 debris): 55 Thailand boss strategies Information and a bit of strategy for all 7 bosses in Thailand. ''Nominal/Cross'' * Armed with: Bullets * Parts: 5 * Part size: Large * Overall size: Small * Color: Red This enemy will most likely be the first one players encounter, as Thailand is the preselected stage when entering the stage select screen. Its fire pattern are two circling bullet streams, one running clockwise, the other one counter clockwise. There is enough space between the bullets to move the ship through them, but the safest places to pass them are below or above the cross, where only one bullet will fly (or in fact, two on top of each other) ''Abominal/Heart'' * Armed with: Bombs * Parts: 11 * Part size: Large * Overall size: Medium * Color: Light red The heart is quite a nasty fiend, as it will continous launch 18 bombs towards the screen edges and draw them back after the maximum length has been reached. After destroying all 11 parts, remaining bombs will be split apart from the exploding eye and fly straight until they leave the screen. Luckily the heart is kinda slow and does not use any other attacks than the (rather slow) bombs, so it should be easy to dodge the more harmful attacks. ''Minimal/Cross'' * Armed with: Bullets * Parts: 5 x 3 * Part size: Small * Overall size: Small * Color: Pink The cross returns. But this time, you're facing three of them at once. They might be very small and easy to destroy, but they however are very fast and their attacks are very dangerous. Instead of using a predefined bullet pattern these enemies will launch their projectiles right towards the player's ship, what forces him to keep on moving the whole fight. Attractor's debris blast and Reflector's charged shots are the most effective attacks on the Minimal/Cross. ''Luminal/Ring'' * Armed With: Laser * Parts: 21 * Part size: Large * Overall size: Large * Color: Light blue Probably the most dangerous enemy of the stage. Its massive body size and devastating laser attack make the ring no easy deal. Try to level your gun as high as possible (if playing with Reflector) or attract as much debris as possible (with Attractor) before facing this enemy. The ring will fly in the same pattern as all other enemies do, which means he may also sweep right towards your ship. Because of the huge mass avoiding this may be tough, but by opening the shield/thrusting away in the right moment you should be able to avoid the rampage. The laser however may be the more dangerous attack; When you see the red beams flashing try flying between them as fast as possible - the ring will continue rotating before the actual firing, what will make estimating the exact laser positions a bit hard. Please also notice that the whole beam is lethal to your ship, not only its center. ''Radical/Cube'' * Armed with: Bullets * Parts: 36 * Part size: small * Overall size: medium * Color: White The cube's attack are four tight bullet streams rotating counter clockwise. Because of their extreme tightness, flying between them is impossible, you either have to shield yourself from them (when playing with Reflector), thrust through them (if playing with Attractor) or rotate around the cube with their rotation speed (what is kinda tough). That's however the only real hazard around the cube, its parts are only small ones and breaking very fast. This enemy is a good chance to earn high combo score by using charged shots/debris storm ''Divisional/Sattelite'' * Armed with: Bombs * Parts: 9 * Part size: Large * Overall size: Large * Color: Green The sattelite's nastiness isn't in his bombs, even though they divide into 5 more bombs when reaching their distance limit - it lies in his body shape. The sattelite looks like a cross with pieces between end and center cutten off - while rotating, one of its parts may surprisingly hit you from behind. Watch the rotation of this enemy. However, it consists of only 9 parts so it should be possible to blow it very fast. ''Sceptical/Squares'' * Armed with: Bullets * Parts: 4 * Part size: Small * Overall size: Small * Color: Green This is the last enemy in this stage, and it's somewhat easy to kill it - if you're aware of its attack. Every part of the square (the eye included) will launch 8 bullets at certain positions relative to the enemy. Wait until the enemy is right in front of you, then use the powerblast when playing the Reflector or launch all debris at once when playing the Attractor. That should do the job. Korea Stage Music: "Where Am I?" by John Marwin Statistics Bosses (In order of appearance): # Mechanical/Scout # Mechanical/Vessel # Mechanical/Ship # Mechanical/Carrier # Mechanical/Cruiser (see picture) # Mechanical/War Plane Special conditions: * All bosses have very similar appearance and behaviour * All bosses will fire directly from the eye when all other weapons are destroyed * All bosses are colored white * All bosses consist of small parts only * This is the only stage where turrets can be found: ** Red turrets will fire non-linear, but in swinging patterns instead (see upper picture) ** Yellow turrets will fire towards your position in a tight bullet line, flying through them is not possible ** Purple turrets will also fire towards your postion, but with three tight bullet lines, what makes it more difficult to dodge them * Total parts (9 debris): 264 Korea boss strategies Information and a bit of strategy for all 6 bosses in Korea ''Mechanical/Scout'' * Armed with: 2 red turrets * Parts: 24 * Size: Small The scout's turrets will instantly open fire when they enter the screen. Their fire pattern is basically easy to avoid, but though the ship is permanently moving, there might also be some difficulties. If playing the Attractor, thrusting sideways into the two turrets might be a good idea, but the timing has to be right. With Reflector, the turrets can simply be brought down with a chraged shot. The rest of the battle can be used to train dodging fast bullets and attack meanwhile. ''Mechanical/Vessel'' * Armed with: 2 red turrets and 2 yellow turrets * Parts: 30 * Size: Medium Yellow turrets are harder to deal with than the red ones, because they always fire at your position - what means you have to wait their fire pause to dodge them. The yellow turrets are where the red ones were on the scout - at the very bottom, what means they will enter the rooms first. Try flying half circles around the vessel to avoid being cornered by bullets and shield/thrust as a last resort. When playing Attractor, the yellow turrets are kinda useful compared to the red ones, as they fire a lot faster. ''Mechanical/Ship'' * Armed with: 2 purple turrets * Parts: 60 * Size: Medium The purple turrets are placed at the left and right edges of the ship, what makes dodging their attacks somewhat difficult. It is strongly recommended to either fire all debris at the turret (when playing Attractor) or to use charged shots (when using Reflector). Picking up the purple turret gives the Attractor a good advantage, as it's able to fire three bullet streams at once, dealing huge damage to three areas on the enemy. ''Mechanical/Carrier'' * Armed with: 2 yellow turrets, 4 red turrets, 2 bomb launchers * Parts: 40 * Size: Large When playing with Reflector you should be on maximum weapon level when facing this boss (if you didn't lose a ship before) - with Attractor however it's a bit more difficult. The greatest danger are the yellow turrets and the bomb launchers, which will fire 4 bombs diagonally, each of them spreading 8 bullets when exploding. This can fill your screen with bullets very fast (see picture), so try taking care of the launchers first. Also, the movement and the mass of your enemy make it even harder to dodge the attacks, carefulness is recommended. ''Mechanical/Cruiser'' * Armed with: 6 red turrets, 4 bomb launchers * Parts: 50 * Size: Large The huge amount of turrets and bomb launchers make this enemy a really dangerous encounter. Especially Attractor player should go on this with exreme caution and use the debris blast as much as possible to get rid of the dangerous parts of the enemy as fast as possible. Luckily the design of this mech doesn't require much moving around, a continous linear fire should do most of the job - as soon as the center's clear, the turrets, whose bullets can not reach the center, are no more deal. However, unprepared players should expect a lot of bullets at once. ''Mechanical/War Plane'' * Armed with: 6 yellow turrets, 2 purple turrets, 2 bomb launchers * Parts: 60 * Size: Very large The war plane is the final and most dangerous enemy in this stage, armed with devastating weapons and having a huge body mass. All eight turrets are aiming at the player's position and the two bomb launchers cause additional confusion by spraying bullets all over the screen. Take care of the turrets as fast as possible, but wait with destroying the bomb launchers until you shred down enough of the enemy - when losing all weapons, the plane will - like all enemies in Korea - switch to the eye cannon, which has an absolutely deadly fire-pattern in this case. If you can handle it, don't hesitate to destroy all weapons of the war plane instantly, if not, better destroy the body first. China Stage Music: "The Night I Died" by John Marwin / "M4, $h0rt Range Bur$t" by John Marwin Statistics Special conditions: * Debris doesn't come from enemies, but from five support veins at the bottom of the screen * These veins can be destroyed by the rockets certain enemy ships shoot * Enemies don't have to be destroyed, the player only has to survive their onstorm * This is the only stage in the game that can't be speed runned (except the boss) * The boss of this stage is the only enemy with two eyes Stage advisories The stage will start by raising the five debris veins and give the player some time to gather/absorb as much of it as he needs. Then the first enemies will close in. From there on, new enemies will appear in certain places and spread their bullets wildly across the screen. None of the enemies actually aims at the player, but they're launching great numbers of bullets, what makes it very hard to navigate or move around. The shield/thrust is not only helpful, but essential in situations like shown on the picture. The best method of dealing with China is to learn and remember the time and positions enemies appear at and focus the own attacks on these spots at these times to take dangerous enemies out as soon as they appear. This will however take some time and a few tries until it works, so it's recommended to play the China stage first and starting off with the other two when it's beaten. That way you have the hardest part of the game behind you when entering Thailand/Korea. Near the end of the stage, there will appear certain ships shooting only sideways. These are the only enemies which have to be destroyed to be able to finish the stage when playing with Attractor - the bullet pattern is too tight to thrust beneath them (however you can shield it with Reflector and leave the ships alone) It's also not neccessary, but highly recommended, to destroy all missile ships and kamikaze drones appearing, as these enemies are able to damage and destroy the debris veins - and they will not respawn, not even in the boss fight. At two times in the stage, three four-armed enemies will enter the screen in short intervals - the first time from the left, the second time from the right. These are the most critical moments in the stages because the four-arms are kinda hard to destroy and other enemies will rush in while you're still taking care of them. If you're unable to stand such a mass of bullets, using the Reflector's shield is highly recommended. The boss The boss of the China stage is by most players rated as one of the most difficult boss enemies ever created. His appearance somehow reminds on the design of the famous Lunar Lander, with aspects of an octopus. A turret is attached at the end of each tentacle, the fire pattern is - however memorable - very hard to estimate and dodge and the boss has a very huge amount of health, what will result in a rather long fight. With Reflector, using charged shots and the shield is a rather good strategy to survive long - with Attractor you will have to thrust beneath the bullets or fly through between them, both requires rather good timing. However, Attractor can deal more damage at once than Reflector by using the debris blast. As the boss is - like all other bosses - moving around the screen it might happen that he moves below the screen bottom and crush you if you are in its way. That means you don't only have to dodge massive bullet storms but also have to watch the enemy's movement. The boss uses three different fire patterns: A short one, where many bullets are spreading all over the screen, a medium one, where the bullet streams are more fluent and somewhat easier to dodge and a long one, where the streams are so fluent and tight that flying through between the bullets is impossible - shielding or thrusting are the only ways to pass them. Your best chances to fire at the boss are his fire waits - short time periods where he does not fire at all. In these periods, quickly fly below him if possible and start launching your full arsenal at his tentacle arms. If damaged enough, the tentacle arms will detonate and the boss will become less harmful. When all four tentacles are destroyed the boss will switch to his final phase with a completely new fire pattern: It might be somewhat tough to dodge the bullets, as they're flowing like spider webs and the boss still keeps on moving, but at the moment he starts this attack, his health is already very low. A few more shoots or blasts will do the job and make him slowly fall off the screen in flames and explosions. Bugs There are only very few bugs in the game and they don't affect gameplay at all, but they can be kinda wierd sometimes. Here are the bugs found and known: Korea background bug After finishing Korea stage, it may happen that the grid background does not disappear and follows you everywhere - even to other stages and to the Game-End-screen. (China boss music bug) (Note: It isn't yet 100% clear if that is a bug or happens on purpose) When leaving the boss fight in China via pressing Escape, the boss music's volume increases to maximum before fading out. (Do not try this with headphones on!) As this does not happen anywhere else, it's most likely a bug. China sound bug After finishing the China boss and showing the results screen, if there were any destroyed veins in the level, a loud explosion sound will occur when the result screen fades out completely. Credits and ressources * Game, sounds and graphics made by Jonatan Soderstrom aka cactus * All music made by John Marwin ** Media:Unmental_loop.ogg "Unmentality" (Main Menu) ** Media:Donttau_loop.ogg "D0n't Taunt Me" (Thailand) ** Media:Where_loop.ogg "Where Am I?" (Korea) ** Media:Idie_loop.ogg "The Night I Died" (China) ** Media:M4srb_loop.ogg "M4,$h0rt Range Bur$t" (China boss) ** Media:Boymgirl.ogg "B0y Meet$ Girl" (Ending screen) Category:Content Category:Browse